The Joint Review Panel left town Friday evening after listening to a week’s worth of 10-minute presentations from individuals, associations and politicians, each explaining their position on the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline project.
By all accounts, few of the more than 120 presentations favoured Enbridge’s proposed pipeline.
From Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach to Youth for a Better World from Smithers Secondary School and most everyone in between told the panel why they don’t want the pipeline project approved.
The panel has heard similar arguments and stories at every stop along their journey.
Unfortunately, despite the opposition from First Nations groups, environmental groups, communities, municipalities, individuals, scientists and non-scientists alike, there appears to be a quiet resignation the project, as it stands now, will nonetheless receive the go ahead from Stephen Harper’s Conservative government on Parliament Hill.
In the weekly poll, The Interior News asked visitors to the website if they believed the Joint Review Panel on the Northern Gateway Pipeline project would give the project the go ahead.
Of the 31 votes, 80 per cent indicated they believed the Joint Review Panel would give Enbridge’s project the go ahead.
How is it, that even though the majority of individuals, groups and municipalities are against the pipeline project, that most feel the project will still go ahead?
Is it a statement on how we view the relevance of the Joint Review Panel?
Is it a statement on how we view the federal government’s intentions?
How is it, that a project which will benefit few in Canada, fewer in British Columbia and many in China, but will risk the aquatic and terrestrial environment of north-central B.C. be approved?
Given British Columbia’s recent success using a recall on getting rid of the HST, perhaps it is time to initiate a recall on Conservative MPs in B.C.
There are 21 Conservative MPs in B.C., recalling all of them would, at least temporarily, leave the Conservatives about 10 seats shy of a majority in the House of Commons.
At the same time, a successful recall of Conservative MPs in B.C. might knock some sense into Stephen Harper to do the right thing.
- Percy N. Hébert/Interior News